Catherine by William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)

By William Makepeace Thackeray

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Catherine’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Thackeray includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘Catherine’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Thackeray’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786564450

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) was a multitalented writer and illustrator born in British India. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where some of his earliest writings appeared in university periodicals. As a young adult he encountered various financial issues including the failure of two newspapers. It wasn’t until his marriage in 1836 that he found direction in both his life and career. Thackeray regularly contributed to Fraser's Magazine, where he debuted a serialized version of one of his most popular novels, The Luck of Barry Lyndon. He spent his decades-long career writing novels, satirical sketches and art criticism.

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The Complete Works of

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

VOLUME 1 OF 70

Catherine

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2013

Version 4

COPYRIGHT

‘Catherine’

William Makepeace Thackeray: Parts Edition (in 70 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 445 0

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

William Makepeace Thackeray: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 1 of the Delphi Classics edition of William Makepeace Thackeray in 70 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Catherine from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of William Makepeace Thackeray, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of William Makepeace Thackeray or the Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

IN 70 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Novels

1, Catherine

2, A Shabby Genteel Story

3, The Luck of Barry Lyndon

4, Vanity Fair

5, The History of Pendennis

6, Men’s Wives

7, The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.

8, The Newcomes

9, The Virginians

10, Lovel the Widower

11, The Adventures of Philip

12, Denis Duval

The Shorter Fiction

13, Elizabeth Brownrigge

14, Sultan Stork

15, Little Spitz

16, The Professor

17, Miss Löwe

18, The Yellowplush Papers

19, The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan

20, The Fatal Boots

21, Cox’s Diary

22, The Bedford-Row Conspiracy

23, The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond

24, The Fitz-Boodle Papers

25, The Diary of C. Jeames de La Pluche, Esq. with His Letters

26, A Legend of the Rhine

27, A Little Dinner at Timmins’s

28, Rebecca and Rowena

29, Bluebeard’s Ghost

The Christmas Books

30, Mrs. Perkins’s Ball

31, Our Street

32, Doctor Birch and His Young Friends

33, The Kickleburys on the Rhine

34, The Rose and the Ring

The Sketches and Satires

35, Contributions to The Snob

36, Flore Et Zephyr

37, The Irish Sketch Book

38, The Book of Snobs

39, Roundabout Papers

40, Some Roundabout Papers

41, Dickens in France

42, Character Sketches

43, Sketches and Travels in London

44, Mr. Brown’s Letters

45, The Proser

46, Miscellanies

The Play

47, The Wolves and the Lamb

The Poetry

48, The Poetry of William Makepeace Thackeray

The Travel Writing

49, Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo

50, The Paris Sketch Book

51, Little Travels and Roadside Sketches

The Non-Fiction

52, Novels by Eminent Hands

53, The History of the Next French Revolution

54, The Second Funeral of Napoleon

55, George Cruikshank

56, John Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character

57, The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century

58, The Four Georges

59, Critical Reviews

60, A Lecture on Charity and Humour

61, Various Essays, Letters, Sketches, Etc.

62, The History of Dionysius Diddler.

63, Contributions to Punch

64, Miss Tickletoby’s Lectures on English History

65, Papers by the Fat Contributor

66, Miscellaneous Contributions to Punch

67, Spec and Proser Papers

68, A Plan for a Prize Novel

The Letters

69, A Collection of Letters 1847-1855

The Biography

70, Thackeray by Anthony Trollope

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Catherine

A STORY

This is Thackeray’s first full-length novel, which appeared in serialised instalments in Fraser’s Magazine between May 1839 and February 1840. Thackeray’s original intention was to criticise the Newgate school of crime fiction, exemplified by Bulwer-Lytton and Harrison Ainsworth, whose works Thackeray felt glorified criminals. Thackeray even accused Dickens of this in his portrayal of the good-hearted prostitute Nancy and the charming pickpocket, the Artful Dodger, in Oliver Twist.  The appearance of the first instalments of Ainsworth’s novel Jack Sheppard at the beginning of 1839 seems to have been what spurred Thackeray into action.

Ainsworth’s novel portrayed a real life prison breaker and thief from the eighteenth century in flattering terms. In contrast, Thackeray sought out a real life criminal whom he could portray in as unflattering terms as possible. He settled on Catherine Hayes, another eighteenth-century criminal, who was burned at the stake for murdering her husband in 1726. However, as he told his mother, Thackeray developed a sneaking kindness for his heroine (who anticipates the famous Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair).  Therefore, the novel that was supposed to present criminals as totally vile, without any redeeming characteristics, instead made Catherine and her roguish companions appealing to readers. Thackeray felt the result was a failure, and perhaps as a result did not republish the novel in his lifetime.

The magazine in which the novel was first serialised

CATHERINE

CONTENTS

ADVERTISEMENT

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING TO THE READER THE CHIEF PERSONAGE OF THIS NARRATIVE.

CHAPTER II. IN WHICH ARE DEPICTED THE PLEASURES OF A SENTIMENTAL ATTACHMENT.

CHAPTER III. IN WHICH A NARCOTIC IS ADMINISTERED, AND A GREAT DEAL OF GENTEEL SOCIETY DEPICTED.

CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH MRS. CATHERINE BECOMES AN HONEST WOMAN AGAIN.

CHAPTER V. CONTAINS MR. BROCK’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND OTHER MATTERS.

CHAPTER VI. ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADOR, MR. MACSHANE.

CHAPTER VII. WHICH EMBRACES A PERIOD OF SEVEN YEARS.

CHAPTER VIII. ENUMERATES THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF MASTER THOMAS BILLINGS — INTRODUCES BROCK AS DOCTOR WOOD — AND ANNOUNCES THE EXECUTION OF ENSIGN MACSHANE.

CHAPTER IX. INTERVIEW BETWEEN COUNT GALGENSTEIN AND MASTER THOMAS BILLINGS, WHEN HE INFORMS THE COUNT OF HIS PARENTAGE.

CHAPTER X. SHOWING HOW GALGENSTEIN AND MRS. CAT RECOGNISE EACH OTHER IN MARYLEBONE GARDENS — AND HOW THE COUNT DRIVES HER HOME IN HIS CARRIAGE.

CHAPTER XI. OF SOME DOMESTIC QUARRELS, AND THE CONSEQUENCE THEREOF.

CHAPTER XII. TREATS OF LOVE, AND PREPARES FOR DEATH.

CHAPTER XIII. BEING A PREPARATION FOR THE END.

CHAPTER THE LAST.

ANOTHER LAST CHAPTER.

How the novel originally appeared in the serial publication

ADVERTISEMENT

The story of Catherine, which appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in 1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons, Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false sympathy for the vicious and criminal.

With this purpose, the author chose for the subject of his story a woman named Catherine Hayes, who was burned at Tyburn, in 1726, for the deliberate murder of her husband, under very revolting circumstances. Mr. Thackeray’s aim obviously was to describe the career of this wretched woman and her associates with such fidelity to truth as to exhibit the danger and folly of investing such persons with heroic and romantic qualities.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING TO THE READER THE CHIEF PERSONAGE OF THIS NARRATIVE.

At that famous period of history, when the seventeenth century (after a deal of quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanising, restoring, re-restoring, play-writing, sermon-writing, Oliver-Cromwellising, Stuartising, and Orangising, to be sure) had sunk into its grave, giving place to the lusty eighteenth; when Mr. Isaac Newton was a tutor of Trinity, and Mr. Joseph Addison Commissioner of Appeals; when the presiding genius that watched over the destinies of the French nation had played out all the best cards in his hand, and his adversaries began to pour in their trumps; when there were two kings in Spain employed perpetually in running away from one another; when there was a queen in England, with such rogues for Ministers as have never been seen, no, not in our own day; and a General, of whom it may be severely argued, whether he was the meanest miser or the greatest hero in the world; when Mrs. Masham had not yet put Madam Marlborough’s nose out of joint; when people had their ears cut off for writing very meek political pamphlets; and very large full-bottomed wigs were just beginning to be worn with powder; and the face of Louis the Great, as his was handed in to him behind the bed-curtains, was, when issuing thence, observed to look longer, older, and more dismal daily....

About the year One thousand seven hundred and five, that is, in the glorious reign of Queen Anne, there existed certain characters, and befell a series of adventures, which, since they are strictly in accordance with the present fashionable style and taste; since they have been already partly described in the Newgate Calendar; since they are (as shall be seen anon) agreeably low, delightfully disgusting, and at the same time eminently pleasing and pathetic, may properly be set down here.

And though it may be said, with some considerable show of reason, that agreeably low and delightfully disgusting characters have already been treated, both copiously and ably, by some eminent writers of the present (and, indeed, of future) ages; though to tread in the footsteps of the immortal FAGIN requires a genius of inordinate stride, and to go a-robbing after the late though deathless TURPIN, the renowned JACK SHEPPARD, or the embryo DUVAL, may be impossible, and not an infringement, but a wasteful indication of ill-will towards the eighth commandment; though it may, on the one hand, be asserted that only vain coxcombs would dare to write on subjects already described by men really and deservedly eminent; on the other hand, that these subjects have been described so fully, that nothing more can be said about them; on the third hand (allowing, for the sake of argument, three hands to one figure of speech), that the public has heard so much of them, as to be quite tired of rogues, thieves, cutthroats, and Newgate altogether; — though all these objections may be urged, and each is excellent, yet we intend to take a few more pages from the Old Bailey Calendar, to bless the public with one more draught from the Stone Jug:[*] — yet awhile to listen, hurdle-mounted, and riding down the Oxford Road, to the bland conversation of Jack Ketch, and to hang with him round the neck of his patient, at the end of our and his history. We give the reader fair notice, that we shall tickle him with a few such scenes of villainy, throat-cutting, and bodily suffering in general, as are not to be found, no, not in — ; never mind comparisons, for such are odious.

     * This, as your Ladyship is aware, is the polite name for

     Her Majesty’s Prison of Newgate.

In the year 1705, then, whether it was that the Queen of England did feel seriously alarmed at the notion that a French prince should occupy the Spanish throne; or whether she was tenderly attached to the Emperor of Germany; or whether she was obliged to fight out the quarrel of William of Orange, who made us pay and fight for his Dutch provinces; or whether poor old Louis Quatorze did really frighten her; or whether Sarah Jennings and her husband wanted to make a fight, knowing how much they should gain by it; — whatever the reason was, it was evident that the war was to continue, and there was almost as much soldiering and recruiting, parading, pike and gun-exercising, flag-flying, drum-beating, powder-blazing, and military enthusiasm, as we can all remember in the year 1801, what time the Corsican upstart menaced our shores. A recruiting-party and captain of Cutts’s regiment (which had been so mangled at Blenheim the year before) were now in Warwickshire; and having their depot at Warwick, the captain and his attendant, the corporal, were used to travel through the country, seeking for heroes to fill up the gaps in Cutts’s corps, — and for adventures to pass away the weary time of a country life.

Our Captain Plume and Sergeant Kite (it was at this time, by the way, that those famous recruiting-officers were playing their pranks in Shrewsbury) were occupied very much in the same manner with Farquhar’s heroes. They roamed from Warwick to Stratford, and from Stratford to Birmingham, persuading the swains of Warwickshire to leave the plough for the Pike, and despatching, from time to time, small detachments of recruits to extend Marlborough’s lines, and to act as food for the hungry cannon at Ramillies and Malplaquet.

Of those two gentlemen who are about to act a very important part in our history, one only was probably a native of Britain, — we say probably, because the individual in question was himself quite uncertain, and, it must be added, entirely indifferent about his birthplace; but speaking the English language, and having been during the course of his life pretty generally engaged in the British service, he had a tolerably fair claim to the majestic title of Briton. His name was Peter Brock, otherwise Corporal Brock, of Lord Cutts’s regiment of dragoons; he was of age about fifty-seven (even that point has never been ascertained); in height about five feet six inches; in weight, nearly thirteen stone; with a chest that the celebrated Leitch himself might envy; an arm that was like an opera-dancer’s leg; a stomach so elastic that it would accommodate itself to any given or stolen quantity of food; a great aptitude for strong liquors; a considerable skill in singing chansons de table of not the most delicate kind; he was a lover of jokes, of which he made many, and passably bad; when pleased, simply coarse, boisterous, and jovial; when angry, a perfect demon: bullying, cursing, storming, fighting, as is sometimes the wont with gentlemen of his cloth and education.

Mr. Brock was strictly, what the Marquis of Rodil styled himself in a proclamation to his soldiers after running away, a hijo de la guerra — a child of war. Not seven cities, but one or two regiments, might contend for the honour of giving him birth; for his mother, whose name he took, had acted as camp-follower to a Royalist regiment; had then obeyed the Parliamentarians; died in Scotland when Monk was commanding in that country; and the first appearance of Mr. Brock in a public capacity displayed him as a fifer in the General’s own regiment of Coldstreamers, when they marched from Scotland to London, and from a republic at once into a monarchy. Since that period, Brock had been always with the army, he had had, too, some promotion, for he spake of having a command at the battle of the Boyne; though probably (as he never mentioned the fact) upon the losing side. The very year before this narrative commences, he had been one of Mordaunt’s forlorn hope at Schellenberg, for which service he was promised a pair of colours; he lost them, however, and was almost shot (but fate did not ordain that his career should close in that way) for drunkenness and insubordination immediately after the battle; but having in some measure reinstated himself by a display of much gallantry at Blenheim, it was found advisable to send him to England for the purposes of recruiting, and remove him altogether from the regiment where his gallantry only rendered the example of his riot more dangerous.

Mr. Brock’s commander was a slim young gentleman of twenty-six, about whom there was likewise a history, if one would take the trouble to inquire. He was a Bavarian by birth (his mother being an English lady), and enjoyed along with a dozen other brothers the title of count: eleven of these, of course, were penniless; one or two were priests, one a monk, six or seven in various military services, and the elder at home at Schloss Galgenstein breeding horses, hunting wild boars, swindling tenants, living in a great house with small means; obliged to be sordid at home all the year, to be splendid for a month at the capital, as is the way with many other noblemen. Our young count, Count Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian von Galgenstein, had been in the service of the French as page to a nobleman; then of His Majesty’s gardes du corps; then a lieutenant and captain in the Bavarian service; and when, after the battle of Blenheim, two regiments of Germans came over to the winning side, Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian found himself among them; and at the epoch when this story commences, had enjoyed English pay for a year or more. It is unnecessary to say how he exchanged into his present regiment; how it appeared that, before her marriage, handsome John Churchill had known the young gentleman’s mother, when they were both penniless hangers-on at Charles the Second’s court; — it is, we say, quite useless to repeat all the scandal of which we are perfectly masters, and to trace step by step the events of his history. Here, however, was Gustavus Adolphus, in a small inn, in a small village of Warwickshire, on an autumn evening in the year 1705; and at the very moment when this history begins, he and Mr. Brock, his corporal and friend, were seated at a round table before the kitchen-fire while a small groom of the establishment was leading up and down on the village green, before the inn door, two black, glossy, long-tailed, barrel-bellied, thick-flanked, arch-necked, Roman-nosed Flanders horses, which were the property of the two gentlemen now taking their ease at the Bugle Inn. The two gentlemen were seated at their ease at the inn table, drinking mountain-wine; and if the reader fancies from the sketch which we have given of their lives, or from his own blindness and belief in the perfectibility of human nature, that the sun of that autumn evening shone upon any two men in county or city, at desk or harvest, at Court or at Newgate, drunk or sober, who were greater rascals than Count Gustavus Galgenstein and Corporal Peter Brock, he is egregiously mistaken, and his knowledge of human nature is not worth a fig. If they had not been two prominent scoundrels, what earthly business should we have in detailing their histories? What would the public care for them? Who would meddle with dull virtue, humdrum sentiment, or stupid innocence, when vice, agreeable vice, is the only thing which the readers of romances care to hear?

The little horse-boy, who was leading the two black Flanders horses up and down the green, might have put them in the stable for any good that the horses got by the gentle exercise which they were now taking in the cool evening air, as their owners had not ridden very far or very hard, and there was not a hair turned of their sleek shining coats; but the lad had been especially ordered so to walk the horses about until he received further commands from the gentlemen reposing in the Bugle kitchen; and the idlers of the village seemed so pleased with the beasts, and their smart saddles and shining bridles, that it would have been a pity to deprive them of the pleasure of contemplating such an innocent spectacle. Over the Count’s horse was thrown a fine red cloth, richly embroidered in yellow worsted, a very large count’s coronet and a cipher at the four corners of the covering; and under this might be seen a pair of gorgeous silver stirrups, and above it, a couple of silver-mounted pistols reposing in bearskin holsters; the bit was silver too, and the horse’s head was decorated with many smart ribbons. Of the Corporal’s steed, suffice it to say, that the ornaments were in brass, as bright, though not perhaps so valuable, as those which decorated the Captain’s animal. The boys, who had been at play on the green, first paused and entered into conversation with the horse-boy; then the village matrons followed; and afterwards, sauntering by ones and twos, came the village maidens, who love soldiers as flies love treacle; presently the males began to arrive, and lo! the parson of the parish, taking his evening walk with Mrs. Dobbs, and the four children his offspring, at length joined himself to his flock.

To this audience the little ostler explained that the animals belonged to two gentlemen now reposing at the Bugle: one young with gold hair, the other old with grizzled locks; both in red coats; both in jack-boots; putting the house into a bustle, and calling for the best. He then discoursed to some of his own companions regarding the merits of the horses; and the parson, a learned man, explained to the villagers, that one of the travellers must be a count, or